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| The rock god returns............. | |
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Lordy 07:48 pm UTC 10/14/11 |
| .........with a stunning mix of modern rock, rap, country and just a touch of Meat magic in one of the most unexpected masterpieces of his career. It's Meat, Jim, but not as we know it. There are some reviews that as a music lover you come to write that you probably shouldn’t, especially when you consider yourself to be long-time fan of the particular singer or band. This is the case with Meat Loaf and his latest album, Hell in A Handbasket. The 64 year old rocker has in the past been well known for a tardy release rate of albums, partly down to his greatest collaborations with Jim Steinmen not exactly flying out at a rate of knots, so considering the grand master of rock only released his last album a year ago it is startling to have a new album so soon – along with the promise of a Christmas album towards the end of the year and another new album already under production. It also doesn’t usually bode well, as rushed albums like Bat Out OF Hell 3 and the 80’s Blind Before I Stop could have been so much better with a bit more time. So it was with a certain expectation of disappointment that I approached the review copy of Hell in A Handbasket and on first listen I believed it to be not only the worst album Meat has produced, but also one of the worst period. But then I listened to a couple of the tracks again. Then the whole thing again. As the man himself once suggested, I slept on it. I usually get albums straight away or don’t. For the first time, I had the strange occurrence of completely detesting Hell in A Handbasket to absolutely loving it. Why the change of heart? To be honest, I still don’t know, but when I’m not listening to the album I’m humming the melodies of some of the hooks from it. When I’m not humming the hooks, I’m singing some of the lyrics. The issue I had with the album originally is that it does not sound like a Meat Loaf album. It is edgy, modern, punkish, current…all the things that Meat has never been able to pull off. The other issue is that on first listen Meat’s voice seemed to be all over the place, but with more listens you realise this is not the case. This is Meat doing something similar to Johnny Cash’s American Recordings – his voice is not as young as it used to be but he can strain out the last ounce of emotion from a song lyric, and on Hell in a Handbasket he proves that he can do it against a canvas of modern arrangements and pure, unadulterated rock. Opening straight rockers All of Me and Fall From Grace, lead into the incredibly catchy The Giving Tree. Mad Mad World introduces the first of Meat’s collaborations with a rapper, in this case Chuck D of public enemy, takes a look at the state of the world – the recurring theme of the album - and as strange as it seems to imaging a rap on a Meat Loaf track, the bleakness of backing track during it somehow pulls it off. The fast paced Party of One continues the bleakness that dominated the album, this time including the lyrics ,”I used to keep a lot of people around, who had their hands over my eyes, ears and mouth. Just like the money and the buzz they were gone in the morning.” Anyone who knows the history of Meat Loaf and his various management teams, this is a song that relates to him more than any other he has ever sung. Into the heart of the album comes the country-rock Live or Die, followed by a cover of The Eagles California Dreaming, the piano driven Another Day – one of the most affecting tracks on the album – Forty Days, which is in the vein of Where The Rubber Meets The Road from Welcome To The Neighbourhood and a duet with Patti Russo on Our Love & Our Souls To round off the album is the Lil Wayne, John Rich and Mark McGrath collaboration that came about following Meat’s appearance on The US Celebrity Apprentice, another rocker with the added gift of a dark rap towards the end. And then the closer which deserves its own paragraph. Blue Sky is not only one of the most tragic and true songs I have heard in a long while, but is also the simplest and most memorable track on a brilliantly put together album. A slow piano, wailing outro vocals backed by a pounding drum beat and a single short verse that basically asks the question of why we treat each other when we all “live and die under the same blue sky.” It sounds like a lost hymn, and the sparseness of the backing music with Meat’s vocal dominating it once again put me in mind of Johnny Cash’s later recordings on songs such as Spiritual. In the end, Hell in a Handbasket is not the Meat Loaf album anyone would ever expect, and it may not be an immediate love of many fans, but I can guarantee that if you simply put it on the stereo, turn it up and let it play a couple of times, it will soon become an exciting new direction for Meat that makes me anticipate his talked about next album with a greater expectation than I came to this one with. This was taken from Musicrooms.net | |
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